


This Grey Path

by Schgain



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternia-Focused, Canon-Typical Violence, Ezra Bridger and Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo's Space Adventures, Humans on Alternia, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Ezra, POV Multiple, POV Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26645056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schgain/pseuds/Schgain
Summary: Ezra and Thrawn fall from hyperspace.Where they land, things aren't exactly any easier: Alternia is a world foreign and bizarre to the both of them, and is on the precipice of its own political upheaval, and the sprawling Empire that grips the stars above in its chitinous fist plays by entirely different rules than the one the two interstellar refugees just left.Lost, confused, and unable to leave this world in the short term, Ezra's goal is to survive the tumultuous adolescent landscape and relocate the only other person that remains of the Galaxy he understands.
Relationships: Azdaja Knelax/Konyyl Okimaw
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	1. To Set The Record Straight; Or At Least, Firmly Crooked

**Author's Note:**

> honestly? The amount of fandom overlap here is probably relatively small, but i've spent a lot of time thinking about this and it makes me happy, so this fic is for me! If you like it too, I'm ecstatic that you do! 
> 
> Please consider commenting-- it'd mean a lot to me. 
> 
> Content warnings for chapter 1:  
> -Animal death. it opens with the depiction of an alien creature dying.

In the desolation of the Dolore plains, on a planet called Alternia, a whale manifests several thousand feet above the ground, seemingly from thin air. 

It gives a bellowing swan song as it plummets to the rural landscape below, vapor trails whooshing by as its fading vision fills with tilled fields and swathes of badland. Perhaps someone far away will mistake the noise for slowly encroaching thunder, but they will not have a lot of time to prepare for rain before the thing makes contact with soil.

The purrgil continues to scream as it dies. The sound is all psychic, resonating on frequencies only talented bronzebloods could pick up, a last desperate gasp to being heard. Purplish blood leaks from wounds, its massive eyes are glassy and blinded, and despite it all it keeps its mouth shut, not opening it for even as the blood rushes to its head and the wind whips at its sliced blubber. 

Someone who lives in the grids of farmland and fallow soil not too far away from where the purrgil is falling looks up at the right time and notices the black speck hurtling towards the reaping. It hits the ground and not a moment later does a cloud of dust plume upwards into the air, black and menacing. It joins the rest of the foreboding clouds that hang this region of Alternia, blotting out all the stars from whence it came. To its witness, this isn't a particularly frightening event. Meteor showers are common, and those get geologists and other astrophysicysts out to the barren stretches of land to pick at meteorites and pallasites. But it's rare occasions that spaceships and satellites crash onto Alternia from their places in the fleet, and it's big caegars for the lucky motherfucker who salvages the best parts. She's not much of a prospector, but she's the kind of girl who likes things to stay how they are; weird breaches of the norm like this are looked upon with a trademarked rustic derision. So what does she do but pull out her palmhusk and call up a friend. 

"Konyyl, wormwood, your matesprit's got a hankering for tech and prizes, right? He ever go prospecting? Yeah? Well, I got a claim for him. If y'all ain't busy, I mean. No more than a few desolation ventures from the farmstead."

There's yelling on the other end, but it's less to do with anyone being irate and more towards the idea that yelling is Konyyl's apparent default state. 

"Great to hear it!" Her cheeriness has an undertone of smugness to it. "Y'all come on over now, soon as possible." She hangs up, the palmhusk's little vestigial legs twitching. It's about to go into the pocket of her chaps, but she takes another glance at the haze of dust on the horizon, and sighs. If other folks come to check it out, there'll be likely be a scuffle over who's got claim rights. And she doesn't wanna tangle with no ceruleanblood on a mission, not without legal help. 

She opens her palmhusk again, ignoring its squealing, and calls up her lawyer.

\---

Ezra Bridger wakes up in pain. 

Okay, granted, he'd more or less expected that. Being some form of mauled, maimed, scarred, or shot at was his average quality of life, and had been for as long as he could remember. He fights the urge to groan, gritting his teeth. There is also the distant urge to be disgusted, for the part of his mind that has become fully aware that he is inside the warm, wet, and smelly mouth of a purrgil. 

... A purrgil that is not moving. 

Ezra jolts up, hitting his head on the roof of the whale's mouth. His vision swims, though it's totally dark, static and phantom colors dancing in front of his eyes. He closes them, not that it makes a difference, and reaches out wirh the Force. 

The poor thing's dead. Ezra takes a moment to mourn, then reaches out further. Last thing he remembered, the chimaera's sustained damage had the ship crumbling to pieces in hyperspace. If this purrgil hadn't caught him, he'd be a goner. Did the rest of the pod share the same fate? What about the Chimaera? Where was--

"Thrawn." 

Ezra half breathes the word. He looks over his shoulder, into the darkness. Only blobs of color, and no signs of his... Well, he wonders if Thrawn is his hostage at this point. 

The reversal doesn't provide much comfort at all. 

He sets to work prying open the purrgil's mouth. How in the name of god is he supposed to accomplish that, anyway? The bone is heavy, slippery, and smells utterly rancid. Simply lifting the upper jaw just gives him a smarting shoulder, having strained the muscle that Thrawn had shot at only a few days prior, and the jaw simply budges slightly when he tries to use telekinesis. 

"Ugh," he mutters, trying to wipe whale spit off onto his sleeve. A pointless venture, because his jacket is soaked too. "This is ridiculous." At least no one was here to see him fail, scrabbling at teeth the size of garden stones and being covered in spit. 

Then-- movement. Not the purrgil's, but something outside it. Ezra senses it again. His instincts tell him to duck. 

So he ducks. 

Light! Blue light pierces the utter blackness, bringing with it the smell of cauterized flesh and cooked whale meat. Ezra shields against it, pressing his eyes into the crook of his elbows and drawing his knees up to cover his belly. Sure, he doesn't feel proud about cowering, but he's at the disadvantage here. 

The hole in the purrgil is carved away to make an opening. Softer, more constant light streams in, and Ezra curses himself for not hiding. Two silhouettes greet him, haloed by a luminescent midnight sky. He can't make out a lot of details, but he can see that both of them aren't much bigger than he is, and both are crowned with horns atop their heads. Weird. A shudder rippled through him at an association he does not want to dredge up right now, and Ezra mentally kicks himself for being so forthright about judging people over something. What would Hera say?

"Yeah, look at this endochitin. Wicked stuff. Guess you aren't as much of a pleb as I thought you were, cowgirl."

Perfectly fluent Basic. Huh, looks like he isn't too far out of the Galaxy yet. Maybe he's just in Wild Space or the unknown regions or something. 

"Now that almost sounds like a 'thank yaa kindly, Skylla, you're a real sugarbee, Skylla." 

"Yeah, yeah. Skylla, you don't even know Duel Strifers from Fiduspawn. You couldn't see the worth in something like this if it fell on your hive and killed your cyster." 

"I played the rust and indigo versions!" 

"You just earned back your pleb status. You think this thing has psychoferrofluid in its marrow? I bet the nervous system alone is worth its weight in siliquas."

"Azdaja, look, it ate somethin'."

The conversation pauses. For a moment Ezra isn't sure how good these people can see him, but when their eyes meet his wide ones, it's unmistakable. One of the gazes that fall upon him is cool and blue, with lopsides tones of indigo and cyan. He doesn't see any pupils. 

"Oh shit, it's alive." Says the blue-eyed one. Azdaja, Ezra thinks.

"Two kinds'a alien in a night? You know anyone who's interested in xenobiology?" says the other. She (well, Ezra assumes she) has got a rougher voice, and it's got a particular canter and drawl to it that reminds Ezra of home. 

"I GOT A D IN THAT." 

Everyone startles now. A third silhouette joins, towering over the present party. If Skylla's voice was rough-hewn, the new girl's voice is chipped and cracked along its edges. 

"A D? Why, I'm surprised at you, Konyyl." says Skylla.

"I don't think your grade would be any BETTER if your schoolfeeding was taught by that PURSEHOUND you call a LUSUS." comes the retort. Lusus? What?

"Better a mutt than be all sharp-toothed and no sharp wit, wormwood." 

"You think it can understand us?" Azdaja breaks up the bickering. He's got a hand up to a device on his temple, and a little hologram hovers in front of his indigo eye. He's scanning, Ezra realizes. But for what?

"Dunno," says Ezra with a shrug. "I don't really speak stupid." 

All three aliens fall silent. 

"Huh," says Azdaja. "Skylla, you said Tyzias was coming?"

"I gave her a screech, but she doesn't pick up for anything lesser'n the apocalypse." 

"What's the point of a palmhusk if you always keep it on silent?" grumbles Konyyl. 

"Well," says Azdaja, "we don't have to wait for her to get here to do something."

Ezra watches him and Konyyl share a look. 

He has about half a second to react before Konyyl lunges at him, nearly seven feet of stony muscle and wicked crimson claws. Ezra dives left, but there's nowhere to scramble but deeper into the Purrgil's throat, and he isn't sure he's that desperate anyways. But he doesn't have time to think about it before something clasps around his ankle; it's not the broad, clawed grip of the big girl that tried to tackle him, it's the ghostly sensatiob of being held by...

Ezra whips his head around to stare at Azdaja with a mixture of fury, wonder, and if he's being honest with himself, a healthy dose of fear. "You can use the Force?!" 

"Konyyl, knock it out already. Its alien babbling is making me lose pan cells." Azdaja rubs the bridge of his nose, disrupting his blue glass monocle. He barely needs to even try to hold up Ezra in his psychic grip, glancing with almost boredom as Konyyl approaches again. 

"Wait wait wait, no-!" Ezra cries, and then a clawed fist connects with the top of his head. 

\---

The sound of shuffling paper, shuffling fabric, and shuffling sandals carry over fallow field. 

It is followed by a pointed, long sip from a mug. 

"So, how'd it go." comes the mumble that follows it, inappropriately smug for a voice belonging to someone so poorly dressed. 

"We caught an alien!" Calls Konyyl. 

"I can see that." 

"About time you moseyed on over, Tyz," Skylla says, exasperation coloring her tone. 

"Fuck me for taking the scenic route, I guess." 

"For the only fella I know who can actually set frond-stalk onto public transportation, I am mystified why you don't carry on by omniscuttler when there's a place you need to be." Skylla sets her hands on her hips. 

"Would you get on a bus filled with only the finest pickings of societal detritus that we have the privilege of seeing hatched into our ruling class?" Tyzias asks. "Would you get on a bus with Tegiri?"

Azdaja groans loudly at the thought, running a hand through his mullet. 

"Well looks like Azdaja and I reckon not, your point's been taken." says Skylla. "And actually, we found two aliens. There was an alive one left inside this old heffer's squawkblister." She pats the dismembered mouth of the xenozoological anomaly. Tyzias raises an inquisition caterpillar lethargically. 

"Daja caught it!" crows Konyyl, raising her biceps to be admired. "And I knocked it out. This is why we're the perfect team." She gestures to the unconscious body at Azdaja's feet, a lump of warm tan skin and orange clothes. He's a heavier-set boy, with dark hair shaved close, showing off a distinct lack of horns. Huh.

"Saviors of Alternia for sure, you two," mutters Tyzias into her mug as she takes another sip. At least this isn't as bad as the last time she was involved with Azdaja. Mister Prince of the Mustardbloods was wanted in four regions for various accounts of treason. Mostly bullshit warrants, as far as Tyzias could discern, just washed-up FLARPers and other weirdos who couldn't come to terms with the fact that they got their ass whooped by a lowblood. Still, representing him in court was a daymare. Hard to press the narrative that Knelax was truly apologetic for showing up those talentless indigo hacks when he kept monologuing about his true potential and multitudes of hitlists. Well, looks like she's got her work cut out for her again. "What do you expect me to do about it?" she asks.

She gets a chorus of shrugs in response, though Azdaja's is accompanied by a "tch" and pressing his fingertips to his cephalochitin. 

"I expected to just get you aboard in case any sorta claim dispute came about with regards to who gets to salvage Bessie here, Tyz. I didn't expect to leave with an alien in tow and possibly a four-digit bounty on my sign for harboring alien scum without culling it on sight!"

"Better you three than some other cull-happy chumps I could think of to drag out a spy." 

"We can still cull it while it's asleep!" Offers Konyyl. 

"Tempting," mutters Azdaja. "I doubt the reward will diminish that much if we turn him in dead, but if he has information on the galactic hordes some of my competitors in Deck Casters Millenium might pay a premium for the digs." 

Tyzias watches Skylla's hands refuse to leave their places on her waist. She's getting agitated, Tyzias thinks, though she doubts Skylla herself realizes why. "Thought y'all weren't keen on pickin' sides, your mustardness." 

"Shows how little you know. The Empire has the caegars, remember? And this mustardblood wants his pockets lined as gold as his fucking veins." 

Tyzias wonders if Azdaja ever listens to himself. 

"So here's a question," she proposes. "Azdaja, did this dude say anything to you before you started handing out naps."

Addaja rattles his tymbals derisively. "The puny thing tried to get some of its alien bleat out, but it's not like it would have anything useful to say to me." 

"BESIDES." interjects Konyyl with her usual disdain towards volume control, "I was the one who started handing out naps. That's half of kidnapping right in the word."

Tyzias knows a psychoterrorist in her law and larceny schoolfeeding class who'd love these two as a case study. She sighs through her nose. "Look, here's what I can do. If some cerulean came by and saw that I had authorized your claim on this salvage, they could basically call dibs, uh. Immediately." Sip. "So. Uh. You don't tell anyone about the guy you knocked into next wipe and let me take care of our alien invasion here, and I'll just..." Tyzias waves her hand noncommittally, her thinkpan fraying its nerve ends trying to find the words she wants. Aw hell, any semblance of judicidal eloquence is totally gone. "Put the claim down as evidence for a crime scene. Anyone who tampers with it gets the gavel." Sip. "Won't stop the middleblue fucks, but it'll mean if they try anything we can do something about it."

"Aw, Tyz," Skylla says with a grin, "that's downright compassionate of you." 

"Yeah," mutters Tyzias, looking down into her mug with a scowl, "full goddamn magnanimity up in here." Nothing like being reminded of your senimentality. But then, if her sentimentality wasn't so widely known, she wouldn't be working pro bono like this. 

"So basically we get the whale. And if anyone tries to get it we can skin them." Konyyl's grin, relishing in the potential violence, is almost infuriating. Tyzias can see why Skylla hates her. 

"Just as long as you shout that you're doing it for our lady the fuckin' Empire, you're golden." 

Konyyl's brow furrows. "I'm olive."

Sip. "Yeah."

Skylla thinks to interrupt before  
Konyyl's stupid can infect Tyzias' pan, and for that she's eternally grateful. "Tyz, sugarbeetle, it'll be a long walk hive carryin' that alien with you, and the Demoness knows any troll with half a pan towards trouble is gonna see you tuggin' him as a grounds to stir something. How about we get him over to my hive for a bit of tender-loving-cull while we leave the flushbirds to their pickings." Skylla rolls up a sleeve, flexing her bicep. The iridescence of her chitindermis glimmers brassy. Stupid handsome Skylla and her low parasite count and higg calorie diet and her gentlemanly doting. Tyzias can't remember the last time her elytra was anywhere close to a healthy shade of blue. 

Sip. "That works." 

"You noobs gonna give us a spiracle of fresh air already? Thank fuck. I could feel my social trout withering just from the proximity to cowtroll boots and birkenstalks." Asdaja flips loose locks of his mullet over his mustard yellow duster, clearly displaying the true wonder of gutterblood haute culltoure. 

"Outta your setae in two shakes of a weevil's snout!" Skylla goes over to pick up the alien. He's bulky, but Skylla's a big girl, and she hefts him with ease; he goes over her shoulders like a muttongrub without so much as stirring, though from how he lays Tyzias can see that his face is scrunched up in either consternation or pain. Well, considering who knocked him out, it could be both. 

Tyzias regards the scene, absurd to the point of quiet contemplation, and the rhetorical question is sort of mumbled out: "Skylla, do you follow the Demoness?" 

She's understandably surprised at the question, raising a suspicion ridge and adjusting her grip on the boy. "Tyz," she says, "I don't follow anyone who's two steps away from putting me in an early cullpit." 

Konyyl rolls her eyes, tossing her head with a flick of her ear. "If you're worried about THAT then you should get better friends."


	2. Rustic Hospitality: Somehow Involves Slime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No content warnings for this chapter!

Ezra could do without any more waking up in strange places, if he's being honest. 

Okay, waking up has far less of a coherent thought tied to the action, more for muddied feelings and desires and base nouns like pain, upset, scared, focus. It's not until he drifts slightly closer to wakefulness that slightly more complex thoughts begin to surface through the sludge and cotton stuffing up the space behind his eyes- there is mostly the want for his circumstances to not cyclically repeat the way it feels like they are, but for the second time in too recent a day to be reasonable, Ezra is in an unfamiliar place and- yet again- entirely coated in slime.

He feels it before he sees it actually, eyes squeezed shut against whatever weirdness has befallen his reality now. "Oh, sick," he mutters. It's too viscous to be bacta, surely. He's utterly soaked in it, and it's cool, and it seems to be supporting his weight. With a shift, the oobleck shifts around him. The motion makes his head spin, as if the world were slowly tipping one way, and it further muddies his thoughts. Was he... sedated, somehow? He tries to focus, to find clarity, to bring the Force to the forefront of his mind, but it's like wading through the flute-reeds that grew along Lothal's riverbanks. Every step closer he gets to the Force only tangles him up further, and right now he can barely trace the life signs around him. Is he alone? Are there two guards, or three? Why is this so hard?

Ezra opens an eye to glare at his predicament. The ceiling is a quiet, nondescript grey above him. It hurts to look at, spots of non-color dancing in front of his eyes. From where he lays and how dizzy he is, he can't tell how high up it is. His depth perception is fucked. 

It is with sudden clarity and nearly comical urgency that Ezra realizes he desperately needs a drink of water. 

He makes to bolt up, but "up" turns out to be a difficult direction to determine. The cloying slime sloughs off him in globs and the cant in his balance upon sitting upright only makes him pitch left- he crashes out of the slime tub and lands with a searing pain on his injured shoulder. Choked with the sudden burning that lashes up and down his arm, Ezra howls. 

"Haha, yeah, been there." comes a voice. Kriff-- when did someone come in? For some stupid reason, Ezra's mind goes to bucketheads. But no, it's another one of the people of this world. She had flatly articulated her laughter as words. 

Ezra glances at her disheveled hair, crooked glasses, too-big clothes, and posture so terrible it could be mistaken for some kind of gravitational anomaly affecting only her spine. Two dull orange horns stick out from the mess of split ends and choppy hair.

"Okay, I get it, not a very great first impression. But let me tell you, I'm usually WAY more graceful than this. You haven't seen my best." He quickly says, trying to grimace past the pain. 

She either gives him a once-over or nearly falls asleep on her feet. "Sucks to hear, because your experience of Alternia probably peaked when you got your nug caved in by a stray catgirl."

Ezra meant to ask "Alternia? Is that the name of this place?" but the conclusion of her sentence reduces his question to a high pitched, incredulous wheeze. "What? Wait, what?" 

She gives him a flat look. "So uh. Which part of that didn't stick to you, spaceboy." She pauses. "I guess I shouldn't go on record assuming you're a boy."

"No no, I'm a boy. I mean, mostly a boy." The slime is making it difficult to stand, and the pounding pressure that makes it hard to think is giving him a rough time at keeping his balance. Ezra just wishes that this person would actually HELP him instead of just standing there to watch him. 

"What's the rest of you?"

"Uh, pain, probably." 

She doesn't exactly laugh, but the sharp little exhale is close enough. She reaches out a hand limply. Deciding his pride is already too bruised, he reaches up and lets her drag him to his feet. 

Huh. Stronger than she looks. 

"Tyzias." 

"Huh?" 

"Me, idiot. And the sentimental one who dragged your unconscious ass here is Skylla. Should probably uh." Tyzias glances down into the ceramic mug she's holding for a long moment. "Probably thank her profusely or something. Or don't, but know I'll think you're a bit of a bulgehuffer for it. She's really sticking her thorax out for you, letting you stay here." 

"Stay? No, I need to get going- I mean, yeah, I'll thank her, but... listen, I'm in a huge load of trouble." Ezra gesticulates, blinking some of the dizziness from his eyes. 

"Yeah, go figure." 

"No, I mean- listen. I had something really really important I was doing. And I need to make sure I can keep some promises I made. Thanks for the hospitality, but I should figure out how to get off this planet." He makes to look for a door. Any door- right now he doesn't care where it leads him. 

Tyzias' expression shifts, just slightly, but it's actually the wave of confusion and alarm that Ezra feels emanating from her that gives him pause. He turns back.

"What?" 

"Do most aliens travel by whale?" 

"What? No, that's dumb. We have ships. It was dire circumstances, and me and the whales- purrgils- had a mission." 

"So you can talk to whales."

"Well, no. I mean, sometimes. It's not exactly like talking as it is... I don't know how to explain it."

"Like baring each other's pump biscuit to one another to reveal a desire?" A new voice interrupts. Standing in the doorway is Skylla. Now that Ezra can get a good look at her, the first thing he realizes is... tall. She sure is tall, and wearing a leather jacket with rawhide tassles, and chewing on a piece of grass. She's got horns just like Tyzias, though hers curve outwards and end in angerous looking points. When she folds her arms, Ezra can see that her broad shoulders and arms aren't exactly for show. She is probably definitely as strong as she looks.

"Yeah," he murmurs. "How did you...?"

Wait, was she...?

Could she be...? 

Was it _possible?_

Ezra blinks a few times, then reaches out towards Skylla with the Force. There's of course her life signature, her inherent connection to the power of the universe, but beyond that...

The little kernel of deeper connection. A stronger path from one mind to another. It doesn't feel exactly like anything he'd ever felt before- It feels like something unique, something rhythmic, a talent beyond the disciplines of the Jedi or the arcane whispers of the Sith. It's frightening, but almost exhilarating. He wishes Ahsoka were here- or Kanan- or anyone who would be able to understand. But before he can grieve and get into a bout of homesickness, the cowgirl decides to answer him.

"Well, stranger, you talk to one lusus, you get a feel for talking to any other." says Skylla plainly, either not noticing Ezra reaching for her the way that he had or politely ignoring it in front of Tyzias. "I'm partial to discerning the constitution of barkfiends mostly, but I reckon I could give a stern scolding to most critters I come by."

"Name's Ezra." Interjects Tyzias.

"Ezra? Short one." Skylla begins to muse. But she must see Ezra's offense blossom, because she puts her hand up. "Talkin' 'bout your name, tumbleweed. But yeah. I've communed with a beast or two in my nights. Is that how your species flies by whale?"

"No! I said we have ships, and-"

"Thinks he can get off world." Tyzias mutters. The graveness of her words kills dead the energy in the room. Ezra watches Tyzias and Skylla share a long look.

"Hey, if the Empire's got an orbital blockade, it's no big deal. I've broken through them before." With friends. With family. With Hera. "Just get me a ship, and I can do the rest." Ezra holds his palms out, facing upwards. Honestly, this is a little too much like pleading for his comfort, but he really wants to believe that these are good people. Just people too uncertain to cross the Empire, people trying to live their lives, Like the people on Lothal, like people all across the stars.

"There's nothing for you to steal." Tyzias mutters into her cup, trailing off. 

Skylla finishes her thought. "There aren't any ships. No way off Alternia except for conscript vessels, and those only come once in a blue moons to pick up new adults." 

"No, let him try. I wanna see him try to hijack a ship full of bloodthirsty new recruits." Tyzias says. 

"No you don't." 

"No," she admits with depression mounting, "I don't." Her nails- well, claws really, Ezra notes- scratch at the glaze of her mug, picking at a flaw in the ceramic. Conflict and worry falls off her in exhausted waves, pooling across the floor not unlike the slime tub he'd found himself in earlier (and is still partly covered in now). Skylla, on the other hand, is brimming with a more active sort of anxious energy. The desire to do something about the predicament set before her contrasts almost bilaterally with Tyzias' yawning paralysis. Neither girl seems to have very high confidence in him; something Ezra is determined to change. 

"If you think I'm trapped, think again. I've gone toe to toe with the Empire before and I've gotten out every time. Once you pick up a few tricks, there's not much they can do to me." He jerks a thumb towards himself, trying to reach out with a self-assured aura and a winning smile. But either the gesture or the words only seem to make Tyzias look more sick and conflicted, and Skylla's considering face falls to concern when she sees the depths of her compatriot's. Ezra watches a steady hand with dirty knuckles rest on Tyzias' shoulder. 

"You hangin' in there, Tyz?" Skylla asks.

"This probably means someone's looking for him." she murmurs, mostly to herself. 

Skylla turns to look towards Ezra, staring at him for a moment while she thinks. "You're a refugee from some kinda conquered planet, right? Are you bein' chased?" 

For a moment, Ezra's faux certainty is real. He knows, for sure, that no one is going to come after him. "No. I'm not. I was leaving my world in a direction where I thought nothing would be. Where I'd be free of the Empire. But I guess there's always something... somewhere." Okay, it's not his most profound thought, but Skylla's face softens a bit when she hears it. 

"Hell of a place to crash, Ezra." she says quietly, as if trying to recall something. But then her tone changes, and she perks up. "You must be starvin'. And I bet starting to crust over. Why don't I show you the ablution trap, and you can wash the sopor off and I make somethin' to fill your digestive sac." 

By sopor, Ezra can figure she means the weird green slime. And he can only hope that the food she's going to give him won't poison him. She walks back out of the room with a gesture to follow. Ezra starts to go after her, but then he pauses, and turns to look at Tyzias. Her expression is unplacable. 

"Thanks," he says quietly. 

She takes another sip from her mug, long and slow. 

"Don't thank me yet."


	3. A Chiss Ambassador in a Jadeblood Court

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings:  
> -Threats of gun violence, gun discharging (no one is shot).   
> -description of broken bones.

The second whale in as many days breaks atmosphere over water, plummeting into the depths and sending up a massive plume of mist tall enough to scrape the bottom of the cloud cover and send the area under the deep blanket of fog. This part of Dolore is even more remote than its stretches of farmland; no one dares to build their hives near the shore, and seadwellers are few and far between enough that nothing will pick at this carcass except for the bottomdwelling detritus scavengers. Maybe the myriad pieces of steel and lithium that fell with the whale could have made a caegar or two for an intrepid scavenger, but the picky princes and petty gamblignants won't bother for anything less than cobalt.

A pun that would be unappreciated by the only survivor of the crash, had he the consciousness and social awareness to consider it. Like Ezra, he is passed out. Unlike Ezra, no one watched him fall, and so when he washes up onto shore he ends up pressed under the waterlogged wood and chitin of someone's pier, unable to break from the slumber caused by the trauma of his descent. At least for now. 

It's not for several hours, but Mitth'raw'nuruodo wakes up to the cacophony of a gun discharging. His body tenses and his ears ring, and one eye cracks open to stare at the perpetrator. He does not yet make an attempt to rise, instead remaining where he lies belly-down on the pebbly beach, half-obscured by the dock. The bullet had hit the sand not far from his face; the crater is right there.

"I didn't have to miss," promises the aggressor. Thrawn immediately considers a number of facts about the situation he is in:

First, his aggressor is telling the truth; they are nearly at point blank range and he is not being a particularly difficult target right now. 

Secondly, the aggressor is brandishing a ballistic weapon, not a blaster. Worrisome; if he missteps and gets shot he runs the risk of bleeding out, or sepsis. A crueler fate than the immediate cautery of a blaster bolt, surely. 

Thirdly, they are practicing trigger discipline. Despite the comfort that the person threatening him has had at least some training capacity in gun safety, it means they are thinking rationally about killing him. A person who has had time to think about and come to terms with the murder of another is, in his opinion, far more dangerous than the one who grabs a weapon in a moment of fear or fury. One can be talked down, after all. 

Fourth, they are not human. In fact, they are not any species he recognizes, though he supposes there are a few to which he could admit that they bear a passing resemblance. They bear grey skin, yellow eyes, and two chitinous horns sticking straight upward, with the one on their left boasting an assymetry: a little nub about a third of the way up. 

Lastly, and most concerningly, they are a child. He can't place an age for a species with which he is unfamiliar, but he would suppose around Bridger's peerdom. Sixteen or seventeen, perhaps.

These five points are far less than his usual standard of extrapolation. However, he must reason with the circusmtances: the accident has really taken a toll on him, and so Thrawn must work with what he's got. He'll learn more as he goes; he always does. 

"Indeed," he agrees, keeping his voice low and considering, "and yet, knowing I was unconscious, you refrained from killing me when I posed no threat to you." He would like to sit up, but any sudden movement at all is inadvisable, assuming his body would cooperate with his demands in the first place. For now, he must watch this child from his lopsided lay on the stones. 

"Do you pose a threat to me now?" 

"I mean you no harm." Thrawn idly realizes this conversation is in Basic. However, the child's phonic structure has a unique tone to it that he's found only in certain sentients across the Galaxy, whose sound production organs are entirely different from his own. 

"Liar. Don't bullshit me. What are you?" 

"My people are called the Chiss." He can hear the chamber of their ballistic rotate. It's not like any he's ever seen before- it's a transluscent, almosy luminescent blue, as if made of some crystal structure. 

"Where are you from?" 

Thrawn is silent. For his hesitance, another bullet finds its mark in the sand, closer to his face this time, so that particles spray up into it from the impact. What an awful texture. "...Will you open fire if I sit up?" 

They think about it for a moment. A good sign, in Thrawn's opinion, though he would prefer not to continue testing the limits of a teenager's rationale at this time. "Not if you just sit up. Any standing, reaching for your gun, I'll put you two to your pan before you can draw. And that includes psionics." 

Thrawn stares at them for a moment, taking a deep breath. He has purposefully not been focusing on the pain in his body, but now with his goal of leveraging himself to vertical, he can no longer ignore it. Shoving his arms under him and lifting his torso makes it clear that his left wrist is broken, electric pangs shooting up into his shoulder blade. 

The world swerves sharply, and then he is upright, laying his arm in his lap in lieu of cradling it. Now he can see the child better, and he watches them regard him. They wear a leather jacket over a dark green flannel sweater, grass-stained pants, and boots that would not look at all out of place on a Lysatran. When he fails to move or behave violently, their head tilts, they squint, and the grip on their gun slackens the tiniest bit.

"Sorry-- are you blind?" 

Thrawn has no idea what could cause them to form such a hypothesis, and allows his own confusion to show for a moment, quirking a brow. "I am not." 

"So that's just like a thing you have got going on then? Huh." For the moment, all malice and interrogation has left their voice, distracted by the novelty he makes for. They regard him for another second, before their expression hardens, and the ballistic is pointed at him in full force once again. "How old are you?"

Thrawn blinks. "I am fifty-seven in standard years." 

"Fifty-- oh, for the love of the old man--" 

Thrawn hopes he is not the old man mentioned as he watches the child rub their face with their free hand. They're muttering to themself, unbenownst to the superior hearing of his kind (though he is suffering from mild tinnitus after their warning shots).

"Didn't put it in sweeps... either doesn't know it or chose not to. Shit." They stuff their hand in the pocket of their leather jacket, and gesture with their firearm. "How'd you come to Alternia?"

Alternia. He files away that information as he considers how to answer. "Involuntarily." 

Ah, it works. Something changes in the way they look at him. It's subtle, but there's a dawning apprehension, an uncertainty rising to the surface. He successfully cast doubt on the perception of himself as a saboteur, and with it they are hesitant to proceed. Their hand shifts; the safety on their revolver clicks. That's a start.

"What's your name?" they ask, their demanding tone giving way to curiosity and trepidation. 

"I am Grand Admiral Mitth'raw'nuruodo." 

"Mitth'raw'nuruodo?" 

He admits that their mispronunciation of his name is a unique one. Their insectoid voicebox turns the "th" sound into a strange trill, rolling it into the r. The poetry on this planet must sound intriguing when spoken aloud. "No. Mitth'raw'nuruodo. Though I find it prudent to allow others to call me by my core name: Thrawn." 

That earns him a deeply offended glower. How dare he assume they are on a nickname basis. Or perhaps they're just expressing teenagerly petulence at being corrected. Either way, there's a certain degree of toothlessness to it (metaphoricallly speaking- sharp fangs jut visibly over their bottom lip) and he can assume that, for the time being, he will not be shot. 

"I'm Sicely," they say after a moments hesitation. "God, Bronya is going to be so pissed. She'll wonder why I didn't flay you on the spot." 

Now Thrawn wonders the same as well. "The preferred method of execution for your people?" 

"It's _idiomatic_. The preferred method of execution would be left up to whoever found you, but the operative idea here being that they'd go through with it, not chitter at you like a half-molted moron! Ugh!" They pace shortly, in a tight little circle. "Can't leave him here, but what if he wreaks havoc in the caverns? They'd flip! Oh hey gals, hi Lanque, just have an entire adult alien here, no big deal." 

Thrawn tilts his head. The child- Sicely- is staring intently at the gun in their hand. "Your curiosity gave you pause."

They scoff. "More like cowardice." 

"It is noble to make the attempt of understanding one's enemy." Their emphasis on adult, nearly identical to the incredulity placed on him being a foreigner to this planet, lets him infer why exactly he was awoken with such violence. It seems that Sicely grew up in a place scarce of adult caregivers, likely orphaned. Of course they would mistrust an adult, even one prone. 

They scoff again, but this one comes out as a dismissive, humorless laugh. "Glad we're on the same page about what we are to each other." 

"I am merely attempting to speak from your perspective. I have no intentions of making enemies with an adolescent." 

He thinks of Bridger. When they cock an eyebrow at him, halfway to amused, he feels... 

How troublesome.

"Usually in the movies when an alien says they come in peace, it means they're about to get the boot." Sicely has a lopsided grin, showing off more fangs. 

"You will find I am not easily squashed underfoot." 

"Yeah?" They begin reloading the firearm, thumbing bullets into the chamber with such practice that they don't need to look down at it. Thrawn nearly expects the worst, but instead the safety never clicks off and it's holstered at their hip. "You should tell that to the drones." 

"May I stand." 

"Huh?" He watches Sicely weigh the costs, face visibly twisting. "I guess. No sudden movements though. I'm a quickdraw." 

"So you've proven." Thrawn nods in acquiescence. He's since been unarmed, and while his skills in hand to hand would likely more than suffice if things truly took a spell for the dangerous, he honestly would rather not partake. He uses the edge of the pier to force himself towards standing, easing him up past protesting joints and what is likely a very bruised knee. His formerly white uniform is stained with the purple blood of the purrgil, and he is covered in sand from head to toe. Obnoxious. He wants to adopt his typical at ease stance, but with his broken wrist and a teenage belligerent, concealing his hands may not be the best of choices. He supposes discomfort is a familiar house to dwell in all the same.

He catches Sicely staring at him. 

"You're shorter than I thought," they supply, almost defensively.

"I've been told I tower over even above average humans." 

"Maybe your species just stays small. Or maybe humans are just tiny." They say with a shrug, displaying no indication that they recognize what a human may be. 

Troubling to imagine the size of an adult of their kind, all the same.

"Am I to assume you are suspending my arrest?" asks Thrawn. He needs to focus, though he is admittedly nearly bursting with curiosity. If this world is hostile, he must learn to survive in it; if he is to learn, he must ask questions, and so it goes. 

Sicely gives Thrawn a reproachful glower. "Don't make me sound so merciful. Ugh, I've been out way too long. I'm probably going to get detention at the MINIMUM. I said I'd be back before day, and the walk back's gonna have me kissing sunlight." They pull out some larva from their pocket, curled up in a ball. Poking it with a claw makes it unfurl, revealing a screen. 

"Please define drones." interrupts Thrawn. 

At first, they just respond with an impatient sigh. Then they stop, seemingly considering. "But I thought you said you came here against your will? I thought you must have been captured by highbloods or something, and they always use drones when dealing with aliens." 

"Define highblood."

Sicely falls silent. They stare at him, and Thrawn realizes they are searching for dishonesty, or jest, or, to put it in their own words, any sign of "bullshitting them". When they apparently find nothing, they speak slowly. Thrawn is not sure if it's out of suspicion or some kind of condescension, as if explaining something commonplace to a child.

"Trolls with a bluer blood color. The nobility who rule over us jades and the warmer bloods." They gesture to an insignia on their jacket, a glyph in green embroidery and deliberately placed in a part of their jacket as to make it unmistakable.

Thrawn's gaze darkens. "An indication of class." Caste hierarchy. So it seems inescapable, the worst of the Empire's flaws blown to an even greater proportion here, and affixed to the front of a child soldier's jacket. 

He reaches up, absentmindedly mirroring Sicely, and straightens out his rank plaque. It's not until their eyes glide to it that he realizes the conspicuous action, and he lowers his hand back to his side. He sees something in their gaze begin to sour, a sardonic smile forming. 

"Right, you said you were a grand Admiral. That's naval, isn't it. You were a bigshot." 

"Perhaps." 

"Well, I hope it wasn't all for show, because no matter how violet you run, I don't think there's much of anyone who'd listen to your word here. You-" 

Their communicator goes off, giving a shrill chittering call and wiggling its legs. Sicely glances down at it in shock, before wincing. They take the call, turning half-away from Thrawn. 

"Hi, Bronya. No. No, I- yeah. I went out. Look, I'm sorry, but I'll probably be late coming back. I don't reckon I can... There was- something came up, alright? Something serious. I don't... I don't know what to do. No, I'm not hurt. I just..." 

When they glance over their shoulder at him, Thrawn meets their steely, conflicted gaze with cool impassivity.

"Listen, Bronya, can you come out here? I need backup. Yeah. I know, thanks. Sorry. Whatever. Please hurry. And..." Sicely turns away from Thrawn again, staring out at the misty wine-dark sea, reflecting a red midnight sky. "You should probably bring Lynera."


	4. Chores And Ultimatum

As it turns out, the ablution trap is a cold bath without running water, and a massive white hound upends a bucket over one's head. Ezra has a few choice words (that Hera would object to him repeating), but at least he's slime- and spit- free. 

Skylla's hand-me-downs are the next issue. Sure, she's a big girl, but Ezra's fatter than her. Plus, he feels weird and intrusive about the whole ordeal, especially when he catches himself in her mirror with a white tasseled jacket and embroidered pants. 

"I look ridiculous," he mutters. Skylla's dog-monster barks in reply. 

"You look fine, tumbleweed, and fashion ain't so much the kicker as it is giving you a little something for protection. Bonafide lusus hide, on account of your..." she puts on an implacable accent, though Ezra gets the idea that she's trying to sound posh, like some inner rim jackass. "Delicate constitution." 

He laughs. "I'm tougher than I look."

"Well, considering what you went through and you still managed to not meet the Demoness, I'm inclined to agree. But it still stands, you can't be wearin' clothes full'a goop and blood and spit in my hive. C'mon, help me do the washing real quick, and them I'll burn us up a big breakfast." She jerks a thumb over her shoulders and Ezra, rapt at her steady confidence and always knowing what next needs be done, follows without complaint. 

Washing is thankfully something with which Ezra is familiar, from when he mostly lived in a derelict radio tower: throwing dirty clothes in a tub of water outside and then stomping on them. Skylla dumps what looks to be a kind of snail shell into the tub while Ezra stirs, but it bubbles and fizzes, creating suds. Weird. 

Now that he has the chance, Ezra takes in the scenery. Farmland and scrub stretch out for miles in every direction, and the grass is a dry yellow in places, or a strange, alien pink in others. No trees dot the landscape, but he can see distant radio towers poking up out of the plains, and further than that, the hazy silhouettes of mountains. He doesn't see any other houses, but a road runs in front of Skylla's house, following a barbed-wire fence on one side and a runoff ditch on the other.

"Y'ever been a farmhand before?" Skylla leans on what she'd called her "bidented hayslinger", breaking his reverie. 

Ezra laughs. "Nah, I was a city brat. Lived on the streets. After that I lived in a spaceship with my family."

"Sounds like hell. Not a lotta orphans out this way, they just get picked off by the dayshamblers. Or the circling carrioncriers. Or drones." 

Ezra stares. "Is this place just some sort of death world?"

"Yes." Tyzias' flat answer comes from the doorstep where she stands like a scarecrow. "If you two are going to get all homesteady and rustic I'm gonna head out. Long walk back to civilization." 

"Tyz, sugarcube, you know I put the rust in rustic." Skylla says, grinning. Tyzias cocks an eyebrow and sort of grimaces, which Ezra thinks might be her version of a smile? It's really hard to tell, especially since all the people he's met here have sharp teeth and could just be doing some weird threat display. "You don't wanna stay for grubcakes?" 

"Nah, give my share to Ezra." She nods at him, and Ezra nods back on autopilot. Despite her misery, Tyzias seems really cool and aware of things. And she was apparently the one to save him. Hidden depths? "I left you a crash course on stuff you'll need to know while you live here. I know you probably can't read yet, so get Skylla to read it out to you."

"Wh- How old do you think I am?" He cries. "I can read!" 

"Not Alternian you can't, is her point. Easy tiger." Skylla puts up both her hands in platitudes, and with a sigh Ezra releases the tension from his shoulders. He needs to focus; he's assuming too much about this place and its people, getting too headstrong, letting fear and indignation guide him. He must remember to trust in these people to guide him, and to have the peace of mind to forge his own path when the time comes. 

Deep breaths.

"Thanks, Tyzias." He smiles. 

She raises her cup to him, turns, and heads towards the beaten path that will presumably take her back to her own home. 

"Wish I knew what was rattlin' 'round in her pan," murmurs Skylla, hands on her hips as she watches Tyzias leave. "Tealbloods. I reckon I probably won't ever figure out how they tick. C'mon, back to stompin'." 

Ezra starts stomping on his and Skylla's dirty clothes again. "What do you mean, tealbloods?" 

"Huh. I always figured aliens would have some sorta hemospectrum. But I figure maybe them not having one would be sold as some justification for us conquering in the first place. Dump that out when you've had enough, I'll get another scrubtrap with fresh water so we can do the rinsing." 

Ezra's brow furrows. Hemospectrum? "Wait, what? Hold on, I need to know this stuff!" But Skylla is already walking off, leaving him in the company of her dog. He looks down at her. 

"Do you know what she's talking about?" he asks. 

Unhelpfully, she just barks. 

"Yeah," mutters Ezra, "me neither." 

\---

The ocean is quiet. Its waves don't crash on the shore, merely lapping gently at it. It's the wind that's cacophonous, blowing unceasingly over the water to beat at the land. From his seat on the pier, Thrawn makes out the purple looming shapes of islands, half-covered by mist and fog. It's a cool night, and the wind does little to dry him off; his hair is disheveled beyond salvage now, and it's beginning to cake with salt. He supposes he's gotten complacent towards the comforts of his tour. 

Though he sits crosslegged, his would-be captor dangles their feet over the edge, skirting the water's surface. Every so often they kick, sending up a spray of pink mist with the heel of their boot. 

"Why aren't you running, or trying to cull me?" they ask, breaking the silence. 

"I am more interested in the answers you present about this world than testing my current prospects within it." 

His matter of fact answer gets them glancing over their shoulder at him, a skeptical look already in place. 

Thrawn angles his head up slightly. "I stand to gain more from you and your compatriots." 

His clarification makes them turn away. A hand idly reaches for a careless pile of beach stones left on the chitin of the pier, and they toss a flat rock at an angle so that it skids in a curve. "You sound like a bigshot, that's for sure. Aren't you scared or weirded out at all?" 

"A focus on pain or instinct can cloud judgement when it's most needed." 

"Ugh, do NOT give me whatever indigo wisdom you have to offer right now, it is not only unappreciated, but I will go out of my way to not follow it, just for the sake of the hot air from your bellowsacs going to waste." 

Indigo? A twinge of irritation passes through Thrawn. But then he remembers: Sicely's superiors are systemically blue-blooded. A biological essentialism to the caste structure, built to cause distrust and terror. 

Control through fear; power through paranoia. 

"Who rules this Empire of yours?" 

Sicely gives him a "what the kriff are you talking about" face. He recalls it well; its familiarity is comforting, and the person of which it reminds him brings fondness. Thrawn realizes his train of thought has gone off in a direction that Sicely's last words didn't connect to. 

"You mean on-planet or off?" 

"Both." 

"Well, the Empire is ruled by Her Imperious Condescension. But her descendant calls the shots here on Alternia. That's Trizza right now as heiress apparent." Sicely pulls out their communicator once again, and pulls up an image, showing Thrawn a photo of a teenage girl, decked out in pink dresses and gold jewelry. She is standing on the corpse of another child, blue blood leaking over a pile of treasure in the photo.

"And where is Her Imperiousness if not on the homeworld?" Thrawn asks. In the background of the photo, he can see a part of a canvas set in an ornate golden frame. So this planet has portraiture... Wonderful. He will have to ask to inspect some, provided Sicely's en-route superiors have any.

"Tour the galaxy in her flagship looking for new worlds to conquer, mostly. I guess." Sicely shrugs. "Post shellfies on Finstagram and posing with cute aquatic mammals? Be beautiful and tall?" 

"You seem to have accrued a positive impression of your ruler." Thrawn comments obliquely. He watches Sicely bristle- literally, their hair puffing up slightly as their shoulders rise. 

"Well-- I have a sacred duty as a jadeblood, to... aid in the future of the species and the Empire. If I didn't like her, then that'd be..." they rotate their wrist, searching for the right word. "shitty."

"I see."

"Don't 'I see' me! What was YOUR empress like, huh?" 

Thrawn pauses to consider this query. He would argue that now, after his failure at Lothal, he would be hard-pressed to consider Palpatine as his own. With his TIE Defender project destroyed and his inability to truly apprehend Bridger, leading to him stuck here in the uncertain present, Thrawn must be his own person once again. 

"I met him on occasion," Thrawn begins. "He was cold, and cruel." He most certainly did not pose with cute marine mammals or post shellfies on finstagram. He does not know what those words mean, actually. Is he getting old? "He saw fit to put me to use." 

His words fail him. How does he describe the true breadth of cruelty and destruction of Palpatine to a child who for all intents and purposes seems to have fallen for the glamorous image of their own tyrant? 

He tries to read their face and gauge their reaction.

Sicely's eyes are wide, their body half twisted to look back at him, supported by a palm on the pier. 

"Were you suicidal or just badass?" they blurt. Thrawn cannot help but smile, just a tad. 

"Perhaps." 

They fall into silence, both turning to look at the water again.

Sicely's ear twitches. Ah, Thrawn can hear it too: The distant rumble of summer insects. Or... No, an engine? Both? He watches Sicely hop to their feet, straightening out their jacket. 

"Look captive." they say, glancing down at him only briefly as they do up the collar buttons of their flannel.

"I am at your mercy." 

"That's the ticket." Sicely walks to the end of the pier at a brisk trot, then breaks into a jog through the dune grass, waving. An iridescent green vehicle pulls up, scuttling on eight thick, insect legs. Thrawn stands smoothly, despite the protest of his knee, and watches two other trolls step out. They both bear the same green clothes as Sicely, though they're much taller. One, wearing a burgundy skirt, easily stands eye to eye with Thrawn. Are these not adults? Or simply adolescents further along in their pupation? 

"What are you WEARING?" Exclaims the burgundy-skirted one. "We have a dress code for a reason! As soon as we get down there, you're changing! Go wait in the scuttler!" 

At first Thrawn thinks Sicely is going to brush her off the way they've done him, but instead they burst out, gesturing aimlessly. "RRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH! YOU NEVER LET ME WEAR ANYTHING COOL! I CALL SHOTGUN." 

Thrawn watches Sicely stomp off, fuming, to the car. His gaze then glides coolly towards the two older trolls standing in front of him. One looks significantly more irate than the other, a bespectacled girl who is holding- no, brandishing- a kitchen knife. 

He idly decides that tonight is not the fucking night to get stabbed. 

"You are their custodians, I presume?" He asks with a nod towards the car. 

"DON'T YOU SPEAK TO BRONYA THAT WAY!" The girl with glasses all but screams this, her voice shrill enough to make Thrawn's sensitive ears ring. 

"Lynera, it's fine! He's just asking a polite question, and _if he so much as touched a setae on one of my jades he will be in a world of hurt the likes of which he's never known!"_ The other, Bronya, says, her voice growing more tight and forced as she glares through a false smile. Ah, all teeth. "I don't know who you are or where you came from, but let me lay down some facts: one, just because you are hurt and alone does not mean I or any of my jades trust you. Two, I will be taking you back to the brooding caverns to attend to your wounds. Three, we will figure out what to do with you when you're not jetsam." 

Lynera still looks like she wants to stab Thrawn and greatly objects to the fact that she isn't able, but she helpfully points a claw (from the hand not threatening to eviscerate him) towards the same... What was the word used? Scuttlebuggy. 

The paradox of trust and paranoia is interesting here, he concedes. These trolls don't feel the need to formally arrest him, or put him in binders. They simply expect him to do as they say.

Ah, given that it is in his best interest, he sees little reason to disobey. Gone are the times of setting traps for stormtroopers and testing the mettle of Imperial might. This time all he needs to do is get in a shuttle. 

Bronya and Lynera look at him with intense eyes. 

Thrawn makes towards the car without a word. 

\---

"That all true? Flying around in space as smugglers, fighting the good fight, sticking it to your Empire?" Skylla's comestible bident is as animate as she is, gesturing with her eating utensil over a dining table that looks like it could skitter out from under her and Ezra at any point. Grubcakes (which feature no maggots in them, strangely) sit out on the table, golden brown and aromatic, piled up on both her plate and his. 

"Yep! All true. Me and my family, we did it for three years before I ended up here." Ezra has only recently learned that the Empire that he worked to counter and the one that these trolls lived under were entirely different. It's a thought that saddens him; that this cruelty exists independently, rose from different people, and ultimately will take a different crowd, one more familiar with its politics and design, to dismantle. But he looks at Skylla, and he thinks that this world might have a shot. 

"And all that while you were still shedding your chrysalis! Aw, I'm jealous. I still got about a half a solar sweep before I'm onwards and upwards, leaving this old dust bowl for good and joinin' the Empire in its conquest." 

Ezra nearly chokes on his grubcakes. He leans onto the table, coughing, and then balks up at Skylla. "Wait wait wait, you're actually _with_ the Empire?" 

Skylla reaches out and gives him a thump on the shoulder, like some kind of halfassed Heimlich. She's got a confused, almost sympathetic smile on her face. "I mean, who isn't?" 

Ezra waves off her arm, sitting back. "But I don't get it. If you liked hearing about my life's story or whatever, why don't you try to go out and get it? You're not actually beholden to these people, even if it looks dark!" 

Skylla folds her arms in consideration, tapping her fork against her bicep. "How long's your Empire been around, tiger?" 

Ezra tries to remember what Kanan had said. "Only a generation. Almost twenty years, maybe?" 

"I don't know how long a year is, but only a generation, huh? You wanna know how long ours has been kicking?" Skylla's voice lacks any malice, any derision for his naivete, but there is a degree of bitterness underlying it all.

"...How long." 

"Hundreds of thousands of sweeps." She holds up her fork. "And in all that time, there ain't been any revolutionary who's managed to change things. Now I'm not saying I'm opposed to a divergence of fate where I'm not hauling cargo on imperial red freighters, but I'm sayin' that you're not the first person to see the plains for the grass." 

"Well, what do we do? We can't just wait for someone else to come around!" 

She smiles, cocking a brow. "Know any heroes fall from the sky lately?" 

Ezra falters. "That's not the point! The point is you can fight, no matter how hard the Empire's made it. You can even _win._ " 

"I do love a brawl. But I got bigger things to fix around the hivestead before I start worryin' about the big picture. Tell you what: you help me out around the hive, and you come up with an actual plan, and I'll lend a scentsponge for what you wanna do. I reckon getting you on your way home will be a cullable offense anyway." She holds out her hand. 

He takes it, giving it a shake. "I won't let you down." 

"Tiger? I believe you."


End file.
